Scary!

Today on NPR, there was a segment that confirmed what I've always suspected, and let's put it on its own line to make sure everyone sees it:

There has never been a death or serious injury due to tampered Halloween candy. Never, ever. Not even once.

This in a study going back to 1958. It's all an urban legend, ladies and gentlemen.

There was also a long segment on gay marriages, which convinced me that it's only a matter of time until they are as culturally accepted as, say, interracial marriages are today. (And yes, if you're wondering, I think that's a Good Thing.) It also featured a couple who was A-OK with gay "unions" but said, "don't you dare call it marriage, because marriage means this, this, and this"; their "this"es were:

• A coming together of opposites,


• A legal, social contract, and


• "Fruition" of the marriage, i.e. children or... uh... something else.

Never mind that they gave no references for these supposed "universal assertions"; take a look at that last one. Rather like Rick Santorum, these folks were stepping all over themselves to say, well, yes, "fruition" could mean children, but it doesn't have to mean it, of course it's all right for people to marry with no intention of having children, but, but, um, the women in the first part of the segment, who had a child via artificial insemination, that, um, doesn't mean fruition, that's only something that a man and a woman can have, because... um...

So a man and a woman who don't want to have kids can and should get married, but a woman and a woman or a man and a man who do want to have kids cannot.

In an odd coincidence, I was recently defending people who do choose to have kids (or have them accidentally, for that matter--hello, mirror!). But, really, can someone explain to me: if the point, as many folks have said, of a marriage is to have kids, and that's why gays shouldn't be allowed to marry... well, why should heterosexuals be allowed to marry if they have no intention (or ability) to have kids?

Come on, social conservatives! Convince me! Really! I'll enjoy telling many of my friends (and more than a few readers of this blog) they they have no right to be married if they're not breeding!